Giorgi Gigashvili
Born in 2000 in Tbilisi, Georgia, Giorgi Gigashvili enjoyed playing the piano from an early age, but for a long time he did not think of a professional career as a pianist. He became enthusiastic about singing and arranging Georgian folk songs and pop songs. With these, he successfully performed at various local singing competitions, and he also used the lockdown period in the Corona pandemic to compose electronic music, which is extremely popular in his home country. But before that, there were a few turning points in his life. In April 2019, he won 1st prize at the Vigo International Piano Competition, where Martha Argerich, whom he greatly admires, was jury president. A few months later he won 3rd prize and the audience prize at the Busoni Piano Competition. This was followed last year by 1st place at the Kissinger KlavierOlymp - here too he also received the audience prize. Many reasons to be curious about his debut at the Ruhr Piano Festival. For it was not only his "individual, highly musical and structurally conscious interpretations" that impressed the jury in Bad Kissingen, but also his "natural stage presence".